Proof that Obama Won

Three things to read/watch:

1. Nate Silver:

2. Talking Points Memo:

and then watch this (and remember that this is Fox News.)

3. Video from a Fox News focus group

The Precursor To Intrade

120 years ago.

My Debate Reaction

I think Obama was strong--didn't crush McCain, but came out ahead.

This, however, is a devastating result for McCain for two reasons:

1. McCain is behind and needed a game-changer.
   
2. This debate will be the most watched, and was on McCain's presumed turf: foreign policy. Consequently, it was his best chance for a big win. I also think, after three weeks of devastating media coverage, there was an opportunity for a narrative shift, which does not seemed to have happened.
   

On the non-substantive issues, I think McCain lost as well. His churlish, angry behavior will be mercilessly mocked on Saturday Night Live tomorrow, and the CW will be set from this debate. As some have noted, McCain's sneer = Gore's sighs. Obama seemed calm, cool and collected.

The snap polls from the networks seem to indicate a universal opinion that Obama won this.

Personally, I think Obama won this narrowly. But he won it on the road, and now the series shifts back to Barack Field.

For the record, this debate series most closely resembles the old 5-game MLB playoffs. The worse team got the first two games at home, but the better team would get game 3, and then 4 and 5 if necessary.

McCain lost his home field early, and now cannot regain the advantage. He could always win on the road, but that is going to be much harder for him.

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Wolfson Repudiates Wolfson's Strategy

Is it me, or is this nothing short of amazing coming from former Hillary Clinton communication czar Howard Wolfson:

John McCain's reversal of his pledge not to attend tonight's debate unless there was an agreement on a Wall Street bailout illustrates the dangers of chasing news cycles.

[...]

This is a campaign flying by the seat of its pants, chasing news cycles without a real plan once it has caught them.

The Obama campaign gets up every day and asks themselves how they can make the case for change vs more of the same, just as they did yesterday, and they will do tomorrow.

The McCain campaign wakes up and figures out how to try to win the day.

Its the difference between strategy and tactics, between a message and a war room, and it is among the reasons why Barack Obama, and not John McCain, is the clear favorite to be our next President.

Find and replace "John McCain" with "Hillary Clinton" and Wolfson is blasting the exact tactics that Wolfson himself was employing four months ago.

Princess Palin

A very smart reader writes:

Did you ever think that the

McCain/Palin/Lieberman triad

is similar to

Charles/Diana/Camilla?

Palin pulled media attention completely away from McCain...

Did you see the COMPLETE COMFORT in McCain's body language in DC, yesterday, with Lieberman by his side?

GOP Chickens Are Coming Home To Roost

Remember when I argued that Palin was going to be a disaster because too many forces within the GOP would now be rooting against John McCain?

Enter Mike Huckabee:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Thursday that Sen. John McCain made a “huge mistake” by even discussing canceling the presidential debate with Sen. Barack Obama.

[...]

Huckabee said he still backs McCain’s candidacy, but said the Arizona senator should not have put his campaign on hold to deal with the financial crisis on Wall Street. He said a president must be prepared to “deal with the unexpected.”

“You can’t just say, ‘World stop for a moment. I’m going to cancel everything,”‘ Huckabee said.

And then the coup de grace:

“I don’t have any immediate plans to seek office,” he said.

Suuuuuuure....

Alia Iacta Est

At this point, with no deal to be struck before the markets open tomorrow morning--and presumably crater, isn't it completely in the Democrats best interests to stonewall the Republicans and force John McCain to either show up in Mississippi, eat crow and lose face, or cede 90 minutes of free media to Barack Obama in front of 40 million people?

McCain has brought this on himself.

Prediction

If McCain signs on to the bailout bill, he's going to start referring to it as a $700 Billion "economic surge."

Forget 3 AM

Would you want Sarah Palin to answer a 3 PM phone call?

Somebody pinch me

Marc Ambinder on what McCain proposed today:

One the proposals -- favored by House Republicans -- would relax regulation and temporarily get rid of certain taxes in order to lure private industry into the market for these distressed assets.

Wait a second. John Sidney McCain III, who has been pilloried over the past two weeks for being an architect (or at least an enabler) of the massive deregulation that has gotten us into this mess, and seen his popularity and poll numbers plummet as a result, goes to Washington D.C. "to save the bailout plan" and proposes more deregulation?

The Chewbacca Defense looks like the Allegory of the Cave compared to this insanity.

If John McCain is a Wookie, you must spend $700 billion.

The Irony of McCain 2008

Has anyone noticed how ironic it is that after basing his entire candidacy on the success of the surge to break the back of the insurgents in Iraq, John McCain is now running his entire campaign essentially as a guerilla insurgency? Shock tactics and stunts to scare the populace.

Weird times.

Baseball

I hope everyone hates baseball as much as I do right now.

If not, read this and at least you will hate baseball players.

A Broken Record

Ok, posting all of the articles and opinion pieces where McCain gets blasted is becoming a bit repetitious. But, I thought this one was particular good:

Joe Klein:

John McCain faced another crisis yesterday--a political one, not the financial emergency he used as an excuse for his rash actions--and once again he overreacted. This is becoming a pattern (as is his "greatest crisis since..." formulation: yesterday, since World War II; previously--on Georgia--since the end of the cold war), and it is not very reassuring behavior in a potential President.

[...]

And that raises an interesting question: Why was McCain so quick to pull out of the debate? After all, with the momentum slightly in Obama's direction, he needed a game-changer--and foreign policy is, allegedly, his area of expertise. His peremptory actions yesterday was not the behavior of a confident man. It was the behavior of a man uncertain, despite all the macho bluster, about his chances in the most important theater of battle in any presidential campaign, one where gimmicks, diversions and untruths can be directly countered by his opponent. McCain may clean Obama's clock in the coming debates--but it seems entirely possible that the old fighter jock may be frightened that he's about to ditch another plane.

McCain's Alpha and Omega is David Letterman

No one probably remembers this, but John McCain actually began his 2008 campaign by announcing on Letterman's show:

(CBS won't allow this video to be embedded)


Last night, a furious Letterman may have ended it:

Darth Vader Tweets

Vader:

Did I call a time out after my stupid son blew up the Death Star? Hell no! I took the boys to Hoth and laid the smack down. Feh.

Reagan and Bugs Bunny

Nate Silver says one of the reasons that he became a Democrat was:

When I was a kid, once every now and then, they had Bugs Bunny specials scheduled for prime time ... I looked forward to these for weeks. But invariably, invariably! -- or so it seemed when I was six years old -- they'd be preempted by Ronald Reagan giving a speech. I was sure what Mr. Reagan was saying was very important ... but I absolutely hated him as a result.

Oddly, I had exactly the same experience, though I remember specifically being incensed that Bugs Bunny was preempted the night that Reagan was shot.

Will McCain "Win The Week"?

We're waiting, Halperin.

Intrade Correction

Seemingly on the order of 8 points (+4 Obama, -4 McCain):

1. Nate Silver Transparency effect?

2. ABC/Washington Poll effect?

3. McCain's debate gambit judged to be a major blunder?

Some combination of all three?

John McCain is like Bush

(warning: may contain obscure 1980's Seattle Seahawks reference.)

As Josh Marshall says:

What's changed today in the financial crisis other than John McCain's poll numbers tanking? Isn't this the campaign equivalent of faking an injury when you're down late in the 4th quarter? Note too that McCain was in the midst of debate prep when he made this decision.

This makes McCain more like Bush than ever before.

Blair Bush.

Rats. I just remembered that it was actually Joe Nash who used to fake injuries.

McCain's Trying to Dodge the Debate

Reminds me of how I would pray for a snow day on the day of the midterm before Christmas break.

Worked once-in the 12th grade, actually.

Talk about quick polls

Survey USA: 1,000 Adults

56%: Debate should be held
30%: Debate should be economy focussed
10%: Debate should be postponed.

Sorry, Johnny.

Thomas Friedman is wrong

We don't need a national "Apollo program" for green energy.

We need a national "Apollo program" for cell phone service that actually works.

Putting Lipstick on McCain

Wait a second.

First, John McCain has $500 shoes.

Then, Cindy McCain has a $25,000 watch.

Next, Cindy has a $300,000 outfit.

And now we find out that John McCain spent $5,000...

...on his own makeup?!

Waaaaaahhh

McCain gets pummeled in the polls, and now he wants to take his ball and go home?

Firefox

I hate to say it, but I am on the verge of dropping Firefox completely and moving to Safari. Pages frequently don't open for me, or take forever to render, but when I open them on Safari they open immediately.

Is anyone else having this problem?

Bush's Eleven

If I was trying to write a script about a bunch of guys trying to heist a trillion dollars, I have a feeling that my plot would be fairly close to what Paulson is proposing.

Campbell Brown Steps Up

Flipping the sexism card on its head.

The History of Vice Presidential Experience

In 12 minutes.



Lawrence Lessig narrates.

Wow. Just wow.

Initially, I thought this woman was a clear Palin supporter, but then she used the word "spectrum" correctly, so no dice.

Do Not Pass Go

Remember during the primaries when various Clinton surrogates, having lost any chance of beating Obama amongst pledged delegates, kept trying to change how the score should be kept: it's delegates! No, it's superdelegates! No, it's big states! No, it's popular votes! No, it's electoral votes!

Well, it's a few months late, but I finally found a new metric by which she would have unquestionably won.

On a Monopoly board, the combined value of the states that Hillary won (New York, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana & Pennsylvania) is $1140 -- far dwarfing the $920 value of Obama's holdings (Connecticut, Vermont, Virginia, Illinois & North Carolina).

The general election looks more favorable for Obama who is leading $980 to McCain's $400 with $680 (Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina) too close to call.

However, don't forget to add the cost of Barack Obama's 1 house on Illinois (cost $150) and John McCain's 1 house in Virginia (cost $100) and 7 houses on Boardwalk and Park Place (total cost $1400).

Buckeye Hillary

Good.

Hillary just held a private conference call with Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and dozens of donors to her campaign and to Ohio Dems, urging them to plow funds into the coffers of the Ohio state party so it can help execute the ground game on Barack Obama's behalf, a Hillary aide confirms to me.

[...]

Hillary also promised extensive future visits to the state on Obama's behalf. "I will be back campaigning up and down the state to make the case that the failed leadership of the last eight years should not be rewarded with another four," she told the donors.

How McCain sees Obama

Apparently, the person playing Barack Obama in the mock debates with John McCain is none other than failed Senatorial candidate and Black Republican(tm) Michael Steele.

Lies (and the Lying McCain Staff That Tell Them)

Ha. The McCain staff calls out The New York Times for not calling them out for being liars.

Except that the McCain staff seemingly lies while doing it.

This election is close, why?

Sorry posting has been so slow

This weekend, my Obama team, 30 Barack, held 7 phonebanks, including the single largest phonebank in California on Saturday.

Suffice to say, this has been an incredibly hectic weekend, and I am sure it will grow even more busy as we close out the last 43 days before the election.

If You Like The Economy, You'll Love McCain's Health Care Plan

Obama keeps up the attack.

Al Franken Pinch-Hits

The best thing about last night's SNL skit skewering McCain?



It was written by former SNL alum turned Minnesota Senatorial candidate Al Franken.